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Tarot Reading – Getting Stuck on the Past

Tarot Reading – Getting Stuck on the Past

Why I am not a fan of the 3 card Spread (Past, Present and Future.)

I am not sure about other Tarot Readers out there but I really do not like the 3 card Spread (Past, Present and Future) and I think I now know why.

Besides being very over simple. Every time I would lay down three cards in the order I would understand why the ‘Present Card’ was necessary and the ‘Future Card’ (usually the card most people are most interested in any way when they come for a Tarot Reading) but it was the ‘Past Card’ that always got me.
 
Why bother with the past, I mean the Querant already knows what happened so why cover it? Yes I get you can use that information to show the Querant that you are not a phoney and help them with the current situation at hand but I used to think it was stupid. I used to look at the card and think, well that is background information for me, no need to cover it again. Furthermore I have had people I have read for not interested at all in what is said about the past. Which I find rather amusing because it is often in the past that we find the keys to our current situation and the knowledge to learn from our mistakes. But there are people who really don’t want to look at their pasts, they spend their lives running from them. Anyhoodle that is an entirely different story and I digress.
 
I was looking at the wrong thing.
 
I was just simply reading it in the wrong order.
 
I was reading the Tarot cards in order of laying them down instead of reading the ‘Present Card’ first and taking it from there.
 
Because the Present card is about the situation right now, the core of the reason the Querant has come to you it should (in my humble opinion) be read first. Then you are able to look at the Past card and see what has lead the person to the current situation to see if it was an actual event or if it is maybe a mental pattern that the person is stuck in etc.
 
Then you can finally finish the reading off with the Future Card with a better understanding of why that Future seems to be the way evens are heading and paint a clear picture for your Client.

I still don’t really like the spread, maybe I should work with it more to see if I can get more out of it instead of resisting. There is a great book ‘The Heart of the Tarot’ which has the premise that you only really need two cards to give a good reading and I like their formula for ‘Situation’ and ‘Challenge’. It is something I have used in and will continue to use going forward. It is a quick way to get at the heart of the situation, as per the book title, but I use it in context when I need some quick guidance or are reading for a lot of people at a large social event. (Not to say that you can not carry out a 60min reading on two cards, you could, but I wouldn’t).


Anyone else out there feel the same way about the apparent sacred ‘3 card Tarot Spread?’

Until Next time...

5 thoughts on “Tarot Reading – Getting Stuck on the Past”

  1. Gaiamara

    You know, I never realised it but I actually read in this way with that spread. I look over the “past” card but don’t pay it all that much mind, and tend to focus my attention upon the “present” card – using the “past card to determine the manner in which the present situation has unfolded, and how it may be expected to develop in the future.

    Thanks for taking notice of that, I never would have become aware of it had you not iterated it so logically! <3

    Reply
  2. Kailash

    I love this ~ I’ve not felt good about going into the past right away, and I like the idea of reading the present card and seeing how how they’ve been in the past can relate to their present, and then what’s possible for the future. It’s not my favorite spread and rarely use it.

    Reply
  3. Marilyn

    Nice! Never thought about it that way. But surely agree that the “past can teach as the future”. (That’s how I say it to my boyfriend.) Now I can look at the three card spread differently; present, past, future. Thank you

    Reply
  4. Rosanne Roy

    I have always considered the first card I put down to be the present energy, no matter how I lay out the spread. So in a three card spread it would be 2-1-3 for past/present/future and I read the middle card first.

    Reply

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